


Port in a Storm

by bethagain



Series: Island Life [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Boats, Fishing, Gen, Gifts, Rain, Valentine's Day Drabble, and gifts that aren't really gifts, and there is no romance, except way longer than a drabble, gen - Freeform, life on Ahch-To, or Skellig Michael, platonic, sorry Luke/Rey shippers but my brain won't go there, watch out for significant angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6032098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethagain/pseuds/bethagain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey tries to do something nice for Luke, but it doesn't go at all the way she planned.</p><p>A (platonic) Valentine's Day story that was supposed to be a drabble but ended up sweeter, angstier, and way longer than it had any right to be!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Port in a Storm

Rey had never seen a boat before. You don’t need them on a desert planet. 

She gets the concept, sure: it’s basically a bowl that displaces water, and as long as the bowl weighs less than the water it displaces, it’ll float. Same way buckets float in wells and troughs. She didn’t even have to ask Luke to explain it.

But that doesn’t mean she’s comfortable on the water. She goes out there sometimes, wouldn’t be fair to make him go alone when they’ll both eat the fish he catches. But she doesn’t go often. Luke has a way of finding chores for her to do on land, instead. He’s never said but she’s pretty sure he’s noticed how still she sits on the center bench, how careful and small her movements are, how she turns a little green when the wind comes up.

Rey doesn’t lack for courage. She scales cliffs to steal bird eggs. She never shies from combat--and Luke has bruises to prove it. With him as her guide, she’s looked into her darkest thoughts, accepted that she has them, and begun to let them go.

So when she hits on the idea to do something nice for him, there’s no way she’s not going to do it. 

Even if she’s terrified.

 

There’s no calendar on Ahch-To. Luke doesn’t seem to be tracking the days, which makes Rey quietly furious because _the Resistance needs him_ but she knows Leia is aware that the two of them are there. She knows Chewie will be back for her. 

The Resistance is holding on for now, because Luke Skywalker has said, “I can’t do this alone.”

It’s a new thing for Rey, to think that there is honor in admitting weakness. But she is aware that without Finn, Poe would never have escaped from the First Order. Without her, Finn would never have made it off Jakku. Without Chewbacca, she would have been blasted into bits along with Starkiller Base. And so it goes, on and on, and she isn’t alone anymore. 

And, she guesses, it’s ok if Luke Skywalker doesn’t want to be alone anymore, either.

Luke’s still full of silences. Sometimes Rey wonders if she’s truly welcome. But then he brings her an extra blanket, worries over a sprained wrist, sits with her when dark thoughts cloud her vision and send her heart pounding. And, since the day she arrived here, she has always had enough to eat.

The marks she draws each day on the wall of her stone hut make the same shapes as the ones inside her AT-AT home, but they have a different meaning now. They mark time gained, knowledge won, one step closer to the next stage of her life. They also give her a sense of where they are on the calendar, and of what today is. It’s the fourteenth day of the second month, and on Jakku that means something.

It’s a good day to at least try to say thank you.

 

She goes down to the water in the late afternoon, climbing down and down from the mountaintop, eyes dazzled by the sun making sparkles on the waves. She’s learned to bathe in the sea and to operate the simple still that makes fresh water for drinking. She’s gotten used to the feel of salt dried on her skin and in her hair. But she still stands for a moment, every time, and marvels at the undulating surface, at all that _wet_. 

Luke’s off doing… something. She still doesn’t know how he spends his time when they aren’t talking about the Light and the Dark, aren’t practicing at sabers or hand-to-hand combat, aren’t climbing around on the cliffs and mountains and finding new ways for Rey to think she’s about to die of exhaustion or terror. (How old _is_ he, anyway, and _how can he still do all this stuff?_ )

Rey sets the fishing rod down. She unties the rope from the pole that’s anchored in the rocky shoreline. “I can do this,” she says to herself as she tosses the rope into the little wooden craft.

The boat starts to float away without her.

Rey chases after, splashing in the shallows, stumbling in water up to her knees. Her feet start to lift from the sand as the cool water reaches her waist. Picturing Luke’s face when she tells him she’s lost the boat, she gathers her strength and _jumps_. 

She just barely makes it. Upper body in, side of the boat digging into her stomach, legs dragging. She wriggles her way over the side and lies there for a minute, leaning on a bench, as the boat rocks beneath her.

And now she’s alone, drifting rapidly from shore, and _where are the oars?_

But Rey doesn’t panic (she tells herself), she never panics, and she’s been learning how to panic _even less_. She takes a moment to calm her mind and then she sits up and looks. Sure enough, the oars are where they should be, stowed beneath the benches. She pulls them out and reaches to slot the first one into its lock. Every muscle in her body freezes up as the boat lists to that side. It’s force of will to keep leaning over until the gate snaps into place. Repeat on the other side-- _I can do this, I can do this_ \--and then the boat’s balanced again, rocking gently among the small, sun-dappled waves.

She has to go back for the fishing pole and bait. This time she keeps the rope in one hand until she’s climbed, very carefully, back aboard.

Sit in the middle. Pull evenly on the oars. Look at the horizon to keep from feeling ill. It takes her much longer to get to the fishing grounds than she’d expected. There must be some secret to rowing that she doesn’t know. The sun is starting to sink into the horizon before she manages to get bait on the hook. 

And now the boat won’t stay where she puts it. 

For the next hour she drops the line, waits a few minutes, watches as the boat drifts past the rocks where the fish hide. 

Pick up the oars, row back into place, wait again.

The first fish slips the hook and is gone in a silvery splash.

The sun is gone and the stars have begun to emerge before she has two she can keep. 

The wind has also picked up. Rey has never been on the water this time of day. Luke has never taken her out when there was more than a tiny bit of wind. It’s blowing right in her face, the ripples on the water are turning into real waves, and _I can do this_. Except the boat seems to be skidding backwards as fast as she can row forward, it’s tipping sideways with the wind, and water is starting to crash over the front every time she goes bouncing up over a wave and down the other side.

“I can do this,” she says out loud, knuckles white on the oars. 

She has an idea that the Force could help her, but no concept of how to harness it here. She knows the Force connects the sea and the air and the sky, but they’re only doing what they’re supposed to do. She’s the fool who got in their way.

So her muscles and her intention are going to have to be enough, because Luke has no idea she’s out here and no one is coming to save her.

Rey focuses on the shore and wills herself there. 

In the space between one wave and the next, the shore isn’t empty anymore. There’s a glow of light and then, when the boat bounces up again, Luke standing there with a lantern in his hand.

Thank the gods. He’ll do something. He’ll use the Force to steady the boat, maybe even lift it up above the waves and bring it to shore.

Except he doesn’t. 

He just stands there and watches her struggle.

Rey keeps rowing. Two meters closer to shore, one meter back. Her hands feel frozen and it’s starting to rain. The boat rocks. Water sloshes in the bottom. She’s too terrified even to feel seasick. 

Two meters forward, one meter back.

Until she crashes over one last wave, the boat scrapes along the bottom, and she can clamber out, remembering to hold the rope. Rey ties the boat to its pole with shaking hands. Stows the oars. Scoops up fishing rod and satchel and stalks past Luke, who’s looking at her with deep curiosity.

“I caught you a damn fish,” Rey says and starts up the steps, boots sloshing.

 

It’s full dark on the mountaintop. 

Rey changes into dry clothes, carefully hanging her shirt and trousers up to dry.

She lights a lantern in the small hut they use for cooking. She filets the fish and goes outside again to toss the bones and guts over a cliff for the birds to clean up. She uses precious water to rinse her hands. Should have done this at the sea’s edge but oh well, she can haul more water up tomorrow. 

Luke ducks through the doorway as she’s laying the filets on a cooking stone. He sits on the bench by the wall, and they don’t speak to each other.

She has to bring a light to find her way to the garden through the rain. She kneels in mud to pull a few root vegetables. Back in the kitchen she dampens a cloth to wipe them clean, slices them thin, and sets them carefully next to the filets. Then she turns on the power cell and watches as the fish turns, slowly, from translucent to white. 

When the fish flakes apart to the touch and the vegetables have softened, she lifts two servings onto plates, adds a fork to each, and brings one to Luke. 

He says “Thank you” as he takes it. It’s something he says often, and it still takes her by surprise. She knows of trades and bargains. Words like “please” and “thank you” haven’t been spoken often in her life.

“You’re welcome,” she says, because that’s what you say.

“I’m not, though,” he says. His blue eyes stay focused on her for a long moment. Finally he takes a bite of fish, chews, swallows. “It’s good,” he says, and goes on eating.

He makes short work of the food and it occurs to Rey that he has waited for her, that he must have been famished. She brings him a second filet and more vegetables, and they eat in silence.

Finally Rey says, “You are. Welcome.” She’s miserable by now and she isn’t even sure why. “That was the idea, anyway.”

“You’re angry,” Luke says gently, and Rey is suddenly furious. She turns her back on him, slamming her plate down next to the cookstone.

“Get out of my head!”

“Sorry,” he says. She can’t see his face but from his tone she knows if she could, there would be actual sorrow there. “You were kind of--” She can guess the gesture he’s making, a hand starting to reach out and then falling. “Projecting.”

She probably was. Rey may not have had anyone to share her experiences with, but she’s always felt them deeply. She’s always known anger as heat, joy as incandescence, hope as an irresistible need. The hurt she’s experiencing right now feels like physical pain.

“I didn’t help you,” Luke says. “You’re thinking I could have?” He makes it a question. Rey figures he’s probably still reading her, but at least he’s pretending not to.

She keeps her back to him. “You could have.”

“Rey.” She hears him sigh. “Look at me please.”

There it is again, “please.” Rey turns around and meets his eyes. “I thought we were in this together,” she says. “I understand now. I got it wrong.”

Luke’s still holding his empty plate. She sees him look for a place to set it, consider the bench beside him, and rest it back on his knees. “You were doing fine.”

She takes the plate from him and stacks it on top of hers. Her movements are under control, but she can’t rein in her tone. “I. was. not. fine.”

He shakes his head. “You were. You figured it out. What would you have learned if I had helped you?”

She gets it. She doesn’t like it, but she gets it. 

Rey blinks away tears as she dribbles a tiny bit of water on the plates, wipes them clean, sets them back on their shelf. 

She’s on her own. She has always been on her own.

“What were you doing out there?” he asks, and she feels the tiniest brush of curiosity and concern. It must be intentional, because he is a master at putting up shields. 

“Fishing,” Rey says.

 _Yes, I saw that._ Out loud he says, “You hate fishing.”

Well, to hell with it. She faces him again, even though her eyes are still wet. “I wanted to do something nice for you. Today is-- on Jakku, today is a holiday for people you love. I never had anyone to celebrate with before.”

Luke looks horrified. “Rey, I’m not-- This isn’t--”

Rey’s equally horrified and backpedals fast. “Oh gods no, that’s not what I meant!” And then she feels bad because she basically just called him undesirable and that was an awful thing to say, plus it isn’t true, it's just that she’s _nineteen_ for gods’ sake and he’s--however old he is.

“Oh good,” Luke says and _he_ sounds so relieved that Rey stops worrying she’s insulted him.

At least the tears have stopped now. “I understand,” she says. “You’re nice to me because you have to be. Because of the First Order and the Resistance. I’m… I’m a weapon, aren’t I? And a weapon has to work properly.”

It had sounded good, needing and being needed, when she thought about it before. Now what she feels is bitter. “You need me because you can’t fight the First Order on your own.”

Luke closes his eyes and leans his head against the stone wall behind him. Shadows from the lantern make him look haggard, so much older than when they’re climbing cliffs together. So different than when she masters a new skill and his face lights up with a smile.

“That’s true,” he says. “Is it so bad that it’s true?”

The tears are back, and now she can’t make them stop. But now she’s crying for both of them.

Luke doesn’t get up. He doesn’t open his eyes. 

Rey wipes at her eyes, reaching for calm, finding it just out of reach.

“When I was your age,” Luke says, “I thought the Force was a gift. It is, in a way. You have an advantage. You already know that it’s also a burden.

“You’re right that I have to be nice to you,” he adds, finally sitting up straight again. “But I don’t _have_ to like you.”

The smile he offers comes with a tiny glow of reassurance and a rush of _please stop crying, I have no idea what to do for you_.

The vulnerability takes her so by surprise that she _thinks_ back at him without a single guard around her thoughts. _Be my friend._

 _I can’t._ “I could get you killed, Rey,” Luke says out loud. _Or worse._

Rey sits again in the chair at the table, watching as he forms his right hand into a fist and opens it again, over and over. After a while she gets up and moves to the bench beside him. She takes his wrist--the same wrist--and lifts his arm around her. Rests her head against his shoulder.

He pulls her in toward his side and they sit there in the lamplight. Rain patters against the stones above their heads.

 _I know,_ she thinks, and lets him hear her. It’s an offering. An absolution, even. 

He has a gift for her, too. _I’m sorry._

 

The next day, Luke starts teaching Rey how to swim.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you drgeoduck for the ideas on what the heck they'd eat on Ahch-To!


End file.
